The Warriors' Path
by Piece of Peace
Summary: Cao Cao,an ambitious army officer finds himself doing things that restrain him from doing what he wants.But he finds out that life has much more in store for him than he ever thought possible.PLEASE READ AND REVIEW!CHAPT.2'S UP!NOW TAKING ANONYMOUS REVIEW
1. Chapter 1

Ok, I just want to make sure you all have an idea at least of what I wan the characters to look like.It may be hard to imagine them like this, but do your best.  
  
Cao Cao has no beard or mustache.

Sun Quan and Sun Ce have no beards.

Xiahou Dun and Zhou Yu has no beard and mustache and no long hair: shorter hair like people in the army.

Huang Zhong has no beard or mustache. That's all for now. Enjoy!  
  
It was a beautiful day. The sun shined radiantly over the earth, the people seemed to be enjoying themselves, and the joyful chirping of birds made it a relaxing place to be. But would it stay like this any longer? Perhaps not.  
Captain Cao Cao strolled on the path on the rural country side with his cousin, Lieutenant Xiahou Dun. Cao Cao's face had a glowing flare that burned with ambition; he was always hoping that he would get promoted to a higher rank and yearned for opportunities to do so. His cousin Dun had an eye-patch on. Some event occurred a few years ago which caused him to lose his eye. Xiahou Dun did not really have any true purpose in life, or rather it might be better to say he did'nt know it. Dun did'nt know what to do, so he always followed his cousin Cao. Luckily, they were assigned to the same base.  
"Comrade Cao, we should be going now, we have orders to report to H.Q. at 1500 hrs."  
"Yes I know that Dun. Why don't we enjoy strolling the area for a while huh?" Cao said back to him. They were ordered to gather a meeting with other army officers at the People's Liberation Army H.Q. in Beijing. However, instead of taking a jeep to head to Beijing, Cao insisted that that walked, which did'nt sound unreasonable since they were stationed at an army base just outside Beijing. But Beijing was one of the world's largest and populous cities; finding your way around could be a very difficult thing.  
Just then, a jeep appeared behind them. Cao, who had wanted to take the time to enjoy the scenery wanted to walk instead. But if they were late he could be court marshaled, which may result in demotion, being transferred to a worse place, or being kicked out of the army. He waved a hand to the jeep which was about to pass by. The jeep stopped, seeing that they were army officers.  
In the jeep were three navy officers in white uniform. Looking at their insignia, Cao quickly indentified their ranks: the young chaufer was an Office Cadet. Behind him was a Lieutenant Junior grade, and a full- fledged Lieutenant. The Cadet was a young man that probably about eighteen years of age. The Lt. Jr. Grade, and the Lt. were also both young as well, but they were a bit older looking and they had faces that looked similiar.  
"Comrades, may you please give us a lift to the army H.Q.? It is an inconvenient time for us and we would like to get there on time."  
"Well of course you may. Get in." Said the Lt.  
Dun and Cao got in and sat behind them in the back. As they were going by the country side, the Lt. decided to speak up.  
"The one driving is Comrade Lu Xun. This is my younger brother Sun Quan and I am Sun Ce." he said smiling and looking at his new companions.  
"Well I am Cao Cao and this is my cousin Xiahou Dun." he replied back neighborly.  
"We are due at H.Q soon. Are you headed to the navy H.Q.?" Cao inquired to any of the other three on the jeep.  
"Yes we are thank you for asking Comrade Cao." he said back.  
In a few hours, they reached their destination. The rest of their ride was silent since Cao spent his time looking at the country side, and Dun wasn't the talkative type. Also, neither of the other three even bothered to talk. The H.Q. was a plain looking building with windows and doors like any other ordinary building. They arrived 1 hour early so they were asked to wait in the lobby. Cao found a copy of the Beijing Times and started reading it. Dun, who was impatient did his best to hide his current state.  
However, it was only twenty-five minutes later the speaker turned on and a female voice said: "Captain Cao Cao, report to the main office ASAP."  
"What could they want? It's a bit early for our meeting." Dun said curiously.  
"Well, at any rate let's go." He said back to Dun.  
  
Senior Colonel Huang Zhong sat down in his office. Sitting in front of him, were Major Lu Bu, and Non-Commisioned Officer 6th Class Sun Ren. Bu was a tall man with solid muscles. Ren, who was from the women's division had been called here as well. It surprised him that some as young as she could hold a rank as the one she had now. He had summoned an officer named Cao Cao to his office and waited. Finally, the door opened and two officers appeared, one of them had an eye-patch. Seeing his superior rank, both saluted attentively.  
"Sit down." he said without returning the salute. And so they did.  
_"Now all officers here for General_ _Cao Gangchuan's meeting please report to the_ _main hall_." the speaker said.  
"Sir, I'm scheduled to go to that meeting. May my subordinate and I leave?" Cao asked the older man.  
"You are no longer required to go." he said curtly to the officer.  
"Now listen Captain Cao, I'm going to ask you a few questions and I want answers understand?" Zhong asked it as if he had no patience.  
"Where are you from?"  
"Hong Kong."  
"Where did you attend school?"  
"West Point."  
"That's all for now."  
"Now here are your orders. All of you are going to train some new troops. We must increase the capabilities of our military. And you will work alongside with air force and navy personel" he said.  
"And Captain Cao...here are your first orders." Zhong said looking him.  
  
Cao sat at a desk that was put up in the middle of the agora in Tianamen Square. The old man told him to stay here all day and to look for recruits. _Damnit!_ he thought. How could an able army officer like him have to do an inferior soldier's work! Most personel in the PLA were unedacated farm boys and girls. He was capable of a lot more. In fact, he was a graduate from West Point. Oh well. So far he got 45 conscripts for the air force,32 for the navy and 300 for the army. Just then two more people walked up to him.  
"What?" Cao said looking down reading the newspaper and said as curtly as that geezer Zhong. Although he knew why they were here he was being vexed at the fact he had to do this simple job while he could probably show his ability.  
"Good sir, we seek employment in the army." said a deep voice. Cao looked up. Before him was a tall tough looking man with the longest beard he had ever seen. Beside him was a slightly shorter man who was a little bit overweight and had a face that struck like thunder. But he was even more muscular.  
"How old are you?" Cao asked in the same manner. He wasn't allowed to take people who were over the ages of 27.  
"I am 25." said the man with the deep voice.  
"And I'm 21." said the other. His own voice was thunderous.  
Although everyone else who were willing to sign up were poor, unedacated folk, these two could be no exeption. But he sensed something different about them, especially the man with deep voice. Well, he would have to wait and see.  
"Alright, sign your names on the recruiting book" he ordered them.  
They did. The tall man wrote: "Guan Yu" and the man with the thunderous voice wrote: "Zhang Fei".


	2. Chapter 2

(By the way, no one has beards, or mustaches, or long hair well except maybe for the women.)  
  
It was the next day when all the new recruits would start their training near Shanghai. It was decided that they would train here because they would be able to train the new naval staff as it was a port city, the world's busiest. Soldiers started their day's as early as possible, including Cao. Although he sometimes he hated getting up too early, it also resulted in having a long day. But he would've enjoyed it more if he could do as he pleased. Anyway, he was now supposed to help train these conscripts. He had been summoned to the auditorium for an introduction like the others.  
Here were the few hundred recruits standing in groups according to their military department: there were those in the PLA, PLA-Air Force, and PLA-Navy. They had not yet been given their uniforms since they were not considered fully fledged soldiers. They took a seat and before them was a dais with a speaker on it and behind were chairs much comfier than the recruits sat it. He was to sit in one of the comfortable chairs. As he made his way to one, there were those sitting in them already. Out of all of them, he knew Lu Bu, Sun Ren, Sun Ce, Sun Quan, and Lu Xun. Their were three others two of them had true blue air force uniforms he had not yet met: one was a bald man with a muscular exterior with a mean, evil looking face in army uniform. The next was an air force captain who had a calm face that seemed to have no expression on it. The last was another air force officer who was slim and had an oval-shaped head.  
He took his seat and sat next to Dun. They waited a bit and Bu got up from his seat and went to the dais. He turned on the speaker and took out a piece of paper and read from it.  
"Comrades, welcome to camp. My name is Comrade Bu and I'll be in charge of your training. You will all be working together because we must learn to work together."  
Taking his eyes off the piece of paper, he now looked at the staff.  
"Here are your instructors. The army trainees will be under my supervision in addition of running the whole thing myself. Your teachers will be NCO 6th Class Dian Wei..." Cao saw as Bu looked the evil-looking muscular man. So his name was Dian Wei.  
"...then next is Lieutenant Xiahou Dun, NCO 6th Class Sun Ren, and Captain Cao Cao. Then we have Cadet Lu Xun, 2nd Lieutenant Sun Quan, and Lieutenant Sun Ce to teach those who signed up for the navy. Finally, we have the air force instructors. Qualified officers are understaffed so we only have 2nd Lieutenant Zhang He, and Lieutenant Zhuge Liang" he said finally finishing introductions.  
"I should let you all know that being in here means you'll have to do very well. You'll all have to be tough to survive.", Lu Bu said at last.  
  
After that, training immediately began. Bu left somewhere to do whatever, and the naval and air force trainees went to do their training under their instructors. So that meant Cao was in charge of drilling the troops. Randomly choosing what to teach them first, he decided that the most important was to be fir for service. It would be hard to make sure that nearly three hundred men were watched over so he split them up into four groups. Dun would make sure that his group were fast runners. Dian Wei would make sure that they were strong. Next, Ren's job was to make sure they passed her survival challenge. She herself told him what that was. It would be interesting, so he had his approval. Then to make sure they all knew what a good soldier was, they will take turns teaching groups. As for him, he decided that he'd take part in these excercises. Then he would give them all a lesson on knowing strategy and tactics.  
Cao chose to go with Dun first. They were about to go on a 3 and half mile jog. Cao decided to tell them the importance of it.  
"With Lt. Xiahou, you will have to learn to be good runners. Having speed gives you an advantage over your enemies. The Mongols had speed using their cavalry. Because of that, they were able to conquer much of Eurasia!" he spoke up to them. Their jog began. He told Dun to be behind everyone as he led the group while all others were in front. He knew very well that Dun was aggressive so if you fell behind he'd do anything to make sure you keep up. He would.  
  
They had been going for only 10 min. and Dun already noticed that two people were behind everyone else considerably. He ran up to them.  
"You two! Keep up!" he barked to them. He saw that they were sweating a lot more than he was. One was a very large man with a round body. His eyes and mouth were big. The other had a muscular body and a serious face. He concluded that they weren't able to keep up because of their bigger masses. Instead of doing what he told them to do, they began to sweat more and the bigger one fell down coughing and as well knocking the other down.  
"Get up!" he said fiercely to both. They tried, but were not able to due to apparent fatigue. Both were coughing. "I said get up!" they still could not. Dun had to make sure they were able to. "On the battlefield, you won't have time for anything! You'll need to run as fast as you can or else the enemy will shoot you!" He moved over to help them get up, but he wasn't gentle. Just then, Cao came running over to them. Up ahead Dun saw the whole group just sitting or standing. In order for them to do so, Cao himself had to give the order.  
"What's going on?" Cao asked Dun.  
"Sir, these two slacked behind" Dun responded attentively.  
Cao took a look at them. He knew that one of them was Zhang Fei, the one who had the thunderous voice. For a moment, he didn't recognize him because his beard and mustache was shaven off. He noticed his eyes burned with dislike as he took a quick glimpse at Dun. Then the other. He had large eyes and a large mouth. And of course, his body was too. Both looked tired, especially the big one.  
"What is your name?" he asked looking at the extremely exhausted one.  
"Xu... Shu..." he managed to say heavily trying to catch his breath.  
"Dun, he is in no condition to do such a form of exercise yet. He will have to walk the rest of the journey. And you may do the same too if you feel like it" he said to Shu then Fei.  
The rest of their short journey came to an end about one hour and forty- five minutes later. Cao saw that they were'nt fast enough, but if they kept doing this, they would become better eventually. Dun had to go take the next group on their jog. Now the group he jogged with would now participate in Wei's excerise. 


End file.
